With the announcement of the Oscar nominations, momentum shifts toward The King’s Speech, which led the fray with twelve nominations, including best picture, actor, supporting actor and actress, director and original screenplay. The Coen brothers western True Grit followed with ten nominations, including picture, actor, supporting actress, director and adapted screenplay. Producer Scott Rudin is grinning as he produced both True Grit and The Social Network, which earned eight nominations, including picture, actor, director, and original screenplay. Chris Nolan’s Inception also earned eight, but while the writer-director landed a nomination for original screenplay (his second), he didn’t get director, which is a sign that the film was not in the top five of the ten slots, and is unlikely to land best picture. Ben Affleck’s The Town was shut out of contention except for Jeremy Renner, last year’s discovery for The Hurt Locker, who nabbed his second nomination.

Sundance jury-prize-winner Winter’s Bone landed a surprise four nominations for best picture, best actress (Jennifer Lawrence), supporting actor (John Hawkes) and adapted screenplay (Debra Granik and Anne Rosselini). Lionsgate specialty arm Roadside Attractions is jubilant today as they also scored two nominations for Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Biutiful, which is poised to open in 25 cities. While it was expected that Biutiful would make the foreign top five, Javier Bardem’s third nomination, his first second for best actor (first was for Before Night Falls), reminds us that the Academy actors branch will recognize excellence–and pays heed to lobbying efforts on the part of such stars as Julia Roberts and Sean Penn–even when a film hasn’t scored a high gross or many other awards. In other words, they have taste.

The full list of nominations is below.

Oscar-winner Nicole KidmanThe Hours) earned her third Oscar nomination for another film that has barely registered on the radar with audiences, Lionsgate’s Rabbit Hole, which she developed and produced. It will now get a needed box office boost.

While Weinstein Co. nabbed 13 nominations, including Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine), Paramount has bragging rights to a total 17 nominations, for True Grit, which earned an impressive ten (Carter Burwell’s elegiac score was deemed ineligible, as it was based on hymns of the period) and Relativity’s scrappy The Fighter, which scored seven including picture, supporting actor (Christian Bale), supporting actresses Amy Adams and Melissa Leo, original screenplay and most significantly, director (David O. Russell).

Sony Pictures Entertainment scored a total 16, including eight for the The Social Network (which missed a supporting actor nom for Andrew Garfield), a song nom for Screen Gems’ Country Strong and seven for SPC: best makeup for Barney’s Version (but not actor Paul Giamatti), supporting actress Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom), documentary feature Inside Job and Another Year‘s Mike Leigh, who landed an original screenplay nomination (his seventh). But Lesley Manville didn’t gain enough traction to land a best actress nod; some Academy members felt that as part of an ensemble, she should have run in supporting. Wily character actor Robert Duvall did not make the best actor cut for SPC’s micro-indie Get Low.

In the animation category, the third slot did not go to Despicable Me or Tangled but to SPC’s artful and classic The Illusionist, which marks Sylvain Chomet’s second feature nomination, after The Triplets of Belleville. SPC landed two best foreign film slots for Indendies (Canada) and In a Better World (Denmark). In the foreign race, the foreign branch committee awarded a slot to controversial Greek entry Dogtooth.

Warner Bros. scored twelve nominations for Inception (8), The Town (1), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I (2) and Hereafter which landed an unexpected VFX nod for its tsunami.

Disney landed twelve nominations: five for Pixar’s Toy Story 3 (animated feature, editing, adapted screenplay, sound editing, song), three technical nominations for Alice in Wonderland plus a nom for Pixar’s short entry (Day & Night), costumes for The Tempest and a song nom for Tangled.

Fox Searchlight pushed two challenging films through the rigorous campaign process. Both Black Swan (which scored five noms including best picture, actor, screenplay and director, but missed a screenplay or costume nod) and 127 Hours confronted audiences with material that was tough to watch. 127 Hours scored six nominations including picture and actor (James Franco), but did not land a best directing nod for Danny Boyle. His Slumdog Millionaire Oscar-winner A.R. Rahman is back in the race for score and song.

Focus Features effectively campaigned for Sundance pickup and summer hit The Kids Are All Right, which landed in the top ten and earned four noms, for best actress (Annette Bening), supporting actor (Mark Ruffalo) and original screenplay (Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg).

In a shocking upset in the documentary race, newcomer Banksy’s Exit to the Gift Shop made the cut over two Oscar-winners, Alex Gibney (Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Elliot Spitzer) and Davis Guggenheim (Waiting for Superman). In the latter case, some documentarians objected to Guggenheim’s dramatic oversimplifications and use of re-enactments.

One thing you can always count on Oscar nominations morning: surprises.

Best documentary short subject * Killing in the Name Nominees to be determined A Moxie Firecracker Films Production * Poster Girl Nominees to be determined A Portrayal Films Production * Strangers No More Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon A Simon & Goodman Picture Company Production * Sun Come Up Jennifer Redfearn and Tim Metzger A Sun Come Up Production * The Warriors of Qiugang Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon A Thomas Lennon Films Production

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song) * Coming Home from Country Strong (Sony Pictures Releasing (Screen Gems)) Music and Lyric by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey * I See the Light from Tangled (Walt Disney) Music by Alan Menken Lyric by Glenn Slater * If I Rise from 127 Hours (Fox Searchlight) Music by A.R. Rahman Lyric by Dido and Rollo Armstrong * We Belong Together from Toy Story 3 (Walt Disney) Music and Lyric by Randy Newman

Best animated short film * Day & Night (Walt Disney) A Pixar Animation Studios Production Teddy Newton * The Gruffalo A Magic Light Pictures Production Jakob Schuh and Max Lang* Let’s Pollute A Geefwee Boedoe Production Geefwee Boedoe * The Lost Thing (Nick Batzias for Madman Entertainment) A Passion Pictures Australia Production Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann * Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary) A Sacrebleu Production Bastien Dubois

Best live action short film * The Confession (National Film and Television School) A National Film and Television School Production Tanel Toom * The Crush (Network Ireland Television) A Purdy Pictures Production Michael Creagh * God of Love A Luke Matheny Production Luke Matheny * Na Wewe (Premium Films) A CUT! Production Ivan Goldschmidt * Wish 143 A Swing and Shift Films/Union Pictures Production Ian Barnes and Samantha Waite

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